expressing solidarity with israel and what we have seen is that he favors engagement with syria's al-assad, with il when he was alive and also, with all of the dictators who seek to harm u.s. interests and our allies. he wants further engagement with them. he doesn't think that we should penalize those dictators and that harms u.s. national security interests. >> kelly: i understand, but if i may-- if i understand, let me point out something that mr. hagel said himself in a recent interview with the "lincoln journal star" which of course is a newspaper in his home state of nebraska. mr. hagel wanted to describe his views as quote, unequivocal, total support for israel and said the distortions about my record, he said, have been astounding. how do you respond to that? does that give you some assurance? because he went on to say that hanging out there in no man's land and follows distortions. what's your response to that? >> that's really such a victimhood kind of response. this man is quite able to respond to this criticism. he can say why he didn't sign a letter expressing solidarity with